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The Protectors® Podcast
Welcome to The Protectors® Podcast, where the valor meets the storyteller. Hosted by Jason Piccolo, a seasoned veteran and retired special agent, this series is a must-listen for anyone intrigued by the courage and tales of those who pledge to protect us. Beyond the front-line stories of bravery and dedication, this podcast goes a step further, weaving in the perspectives of those who bolster and narrate the protector's journey—featuring a remarkable lineup including New York Times Best Sellers and acclaimed Hollywood actors.
The Protectors® Podcast offers a diverse array of voices, from those who wear the uniform to the authors and entertainers who amplify their stories. It's a unique blend that highlights not only the raw realities faced by our protectors but also how their sacrifices inspire the narratives we cherish in literature and film. Each episode is a testament to the interconnected worlds of service and support, bringing listeners an unmatched depth of insight.
Dr. Jason Piccolo is a retired federal agent, former U.S. Army Infantry Captain (Iraq 2006), and author.
Past Guests Include:- Sean Patrick Flanery - Andrews & Wilson- Mark Greaney- Stephen Hunter- Remi Adeleke - Florent Groberg - Clint Emerson - Travis Mills
The Protectors® Podcast
515 | Jeremy Stalnecker | Pivotal Decisions and Faith
Jeremy opens up about the role of faith in his life, offering a personal reflection on how belief systems can fortify resilience in the harshest of conditions. From early familial influences to deeply personal convictions, Jeremy's spiritual journey underscores the importance of faith not only for survival in combat but as a foundation for leadership and care. The discussion broadens into how organizations like the Mighty Oaks Foundation provide veterans and first responders with hope and purpose, especially when grappling with trauma and identity loss.
Feeling disconnected or cynical isn't uncommon for veterans, but Jeremy highlights the transformative power of peer-to-peer support networks. By sharing authentic experiences and fostering genuine relationships, veterans can combat isolation and rebuild their sense of identity and confidence. Jeremy introduces the empowering philosophy of "March or Die," encouraging individuals to move forward despite life's adversities. Through compelling stories and actionable insights, this episode offers a roadmap for overcoming challenges and finding peace through faith and community.
Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo
Hey, welcome back to the Protectors Podcast. A couple weeks off, took a couple weeks off to enjoy the weather. This brisk, now brisk weather. First guest back is Jeremy Stolenecker. Um, a few different things in common. He was a little bit more dynamic in his career in the military than me, absolutely. But you know, hey, once infantry, you're always infantry.
Speaker 2:Right, jeremy, that's right even if you're in the army, still infantry shots fired, shots fired.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, now you know what we make sure we're all clear on what we're doing here exactly. You know you were talking right before we hit record button about your deployment to iraq, and that was 2003, and you mentioned something. It was a very kinetic time, yeah, very kinetic yeah, yeah, it was.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know, we, we look back to that and know how the war unfolded over 20 years, where it became very urban you talk about forward operating bases and all the language around how we now think of the war in Iraq particularly. And then, on March 19th, breached the berm, pushed north, hit the southern objective and did a road march from the southern border of Iraq to Baghdad. The Battle of Baghdad on April 10th 2003 was our infantry battalion. When I think of kinetic warfare, that's what we were doing. We were moving, we were shooting, we were dealing with armor and all the things that we had planned on and talked about. But when we got to Baghdad, that stopped and everything changed and so a very different war after we got there. But, yeah, really interesting time for sure.
Speaker 1:Now, were you at the time? Were you a CO? Were you a platoon leader?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was a platoon commander for what we called countermechanized platoon. We had the anti-armor assets, so tows, javelins at the time, all the anti-armor assets and then the bunch of equipment, uh, which made it, I think at the time, probably the biggest platoon in uh in in Iraq. But, um man, it was awesome. We trained for a long time. Uh, I had the opportunity to train with those guys for two years, which is pretty unusual in the infantry world. You're moving around a lot and I had the same Marines for, like I said, over two years. Uh ended up navigating for the battalion and and, um yeah, kind of running and gunning for uh for a few months in.
Speaker 1:Iraq. Okay, now you were. You just said, navigating for the battalion. Talk about it. Responsibility Is that? Talk about like you're moving the battalion, you're the forward operating unit and you're pushing forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Marine infantry battalion, 1200, 1,200-ish Marines and attachments, our corpsmen and all the other folks that were attached to us, about 1,200 people. So you think about a unit moving over several miles. We were mecked up. We had amphibious tractors, so AVs that were moving all of our Marines except for mine, we were all in hardback HUMVs and so you're navigating this column or this battalion, this column, and it's interesting, man, I feel really old when I talk about these things. But before we deployed to Iraq I went to Target and I got a Magellan GPS, a little yellow Magellan GPS, right, and I could put my gear. And I don't know at the time I don't even know why I bought it. I'm like, ah man, maybe I'll need this. I don't know. Um gave me a six digit grid coordinate and um ended up using that.
Speaker 2:We had onboard computers. Our vehicles were all from the early 90s. They came off of pre-positioned shipping, so they were old vehicles. The alternators, the electrical systems on those vehicles couldn't support all the new tech. As soon as we started moving, it all went down. We didn't have Blue Force Tracker. It was the predecessor to that, our onboard call it a DAC system. It went down immediately.
Speaker 2:That's how I was supposed to navigate our battalion, so I ended up navigating using that little Magellan that I bought.
Speaker 2:I'd hold it out the window to get a signal, I could get the six digit grid coordinates for where we were, and I had a map book, and the map book was page after page after page of photocopied maps with the grid coordinates, and I'd take that in, I'd look at it, I'd figure out where we were, and I'd call that back to our CO, who was about two miles behind me, and, yeah, navigated all the way to Baghdad that way, which was pretty crazy.
Speaker 2:The navigation was a thing for sure hitting checkpoints and the rest of it. The biggest part of that, though, was that we provided forward security for our battalion, so any objective that we hit we hit first. Kind of those decision points were ours to make until the battalion commander was up to speed and we could figure out what to do from there, and a couple of times that became critical. We hit some machine gun, hit a machine gun position, hit some mortar positions along the way, and then, going into Baghdad, that fight, we were ambushed going into the city, and that became a 12-hour engagement to get to our objective. So, yeah, crazy time, and there's really no other way to say it. It was just a crazy time.
Speaker 1:You know, decision-making process is a completely different one. You're the forward element compared to the guy in the rear who has hours and hours and hours to develop a plan. When you're pushing north, you've got to make a decision and, as we both know, when you go through any leadership training ROTC, pldc or NCO courses or anything else you are graded on your decision-making. You absolutely have to make that decision. The ones who are weak will get a lower grade, which is good. You should be able to make a decision. You should be recognized if you can make a decision. You may need to refocus and learn how to make a decision, but when you're pushing north and you've got a Magellan in your hand and you might come under troops in contact or anything else and you have to make decisions you're a junior officer at the time really pushing forward for a battalion level operation you have got to make decisions and everybody relies on you. That's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 2:That is a lot of pressure yeah, it is a lot of pressure. You know what. What removes or relieves a lot of that pressure, though, is clarity around commander's intent. We talk about this all the time in the military, but instead of just understanding what I'm supposed to do right now, understand what the end goal is. So where are we supposed to when the shooting stops, when this thing's over? Where are we supposed to be right? And so that clarifies those lanes of decision-making.
Speaker 2:Simple example we were given the task of securing a bridge. I talk about this a lot, I've written about this, but securing a bridge over what was called the Saddam Canal. It was a canal, right, so it was up on a berm. You go up on top of the berm, there's a bridge, and that was deemed by the division to be strategically important. We needed to preserve this bridge. Division to be strategically important. We needed to preserve this bridge, so our battalion was sent to secure it. Middle of the day it was supposed to be a fairly routine operation. The military intel community told us that enemy soldiers were gone. There was no one there, so we wouldn't even have contact. I'm leading our battalion into that.
Speaker 2:It's the middle of the day. We come into the straightaway toward the bridge and we immediately start to receive both mortar fire and machine gun fire. My job, so what I was told to do, was get to the near side of the bridge, secure the near side of the bridge. We were going to hold that as a battalion and then the second battalion I was first battalion fifth Marine, third battalion fifth Marines. That one coming up behind us was supposed to then pass through and continue forward. Our job, my mission, was to stay on the near side of the bridge. We dealt with that machine gun position per our SOPs and our immediate action drills, but the mortar rounds kept falling. The mortar positions were on the other side of the bridge, on top of the canal, so I had to get to a place where I could engage with those.
Speaker 2:So a decision needed to be made at that point. But it wasn't a difficult decision because I understood commander's intent. Commander's intent was deal with whatever enemy may be there and secure this bridge so that follow-on operations can happen. Well, understanding commander's intent, then push me on top of the bridge to the other side of the bridge, to engage the enemy and allow the rest of our unit to get there and allow that process to unfold. Where people really struggle, I think, with decision making is when they don't know where they're going. They don't understand why they're going there and there are so many questions around. Why are we even doing this? That muddies the water so much when you know this is where I'm supposed to be when this thing's over. That makes the process of making decisions much simpler.
Speaker 1:Imagine you bring that into the civilian concept. The one thing I do want to bring into the fact is you mentioned one word in there that always kind of keys off of me and a of people don't realize it. Most of our life we talk to a lot of people that say I, but you said we had to subscure this, we had to do this, but you had two years to become we, right we as part of your team. So surrounding yourself with the right people and shifting focus and moving people around to where their strengths are developed makes you a success. So let's talk a little bit about that building your team knowing you're going into war.
Speaker 2:The military does this so well and a lot of it is automated. You don't even realize it's happening when it happens, as a platoon commander, you show up to your unit, whether that's a rifle platoon, maybe it's a larger platoon, maybe it's a company commander, it's a company. You have who you have. Your troops are your troops. They're given to you. But your responsibility as the leader of that unit is to begin to understand strengths and weaknesses, who does what well, who's not as good, and to begin to position those people in places where they'll allow you to accomplish the mission. We trained together for two years, and so what that meant was I had two years of understanding who can deal well under pressure, who's going to make the right decision, who's not going to make the right decision? I put some people in the wrong position, and that became very clear when we were under fire. Man, they are not in the right position. I need to move them out and make those adjustments. I need to move them out and make those adjustments, but the decisions that are made at the point of contact should simply be an extension of the decisions that were made in peacetime. In this scenario, you know what potentials lie in front of us and build our team, not for what we're dealing with today, but what we may be dealing with in the future, so that when we get to those friction points, when we get to those difficult moments where decisions have to be made, the team has already trained, has already practiced, has already put together their SOPs or their immediate actions. They know what they're going to do. There doesn't have to be a big discussion or conversation, maybe some limited guidance, but then the team executes the way they had already executed.
Speaker 2:The best time to make a decision is before the enemy presents himself, and I think that's true in combat, that's true in business, that's true in marriage, it's true with your kids. We have such a short view of what we're doing. We're constantly trying to navigate this moment. Sometimes you have to, but it's better to plan for what may happen in the future. How am I preparing for when my kids are a little bit older? How am I preparing for when my kids are out of the house? What are my wife and I doing to prepare for that?
Speaker 2:When we look down the road in terms of our business, we want to scale to a particular point. We have some things we need to do now. But if we get there, what are we going to need to do? What? What will we need to do? And you see, people who are able to scale, they do really well. Then they hit a wall that they didn't plan for and everything falls apart. Putting the right people in place before the bullets start flying is absolutely key to success flying is absolutely key to success.
Speaker 1:Well, one thing you learn putting all these people together and getting into combat and the bullets are flying is faith. You know absolute faith in yourself, but also faith in a higher purpose and a higher being. Because one thing I've learned is like I joined the army in 1993 and the first, one of the first things you get, one of the first couple weeks, there is a little bible, little camo bible or a little, I can't remember what it is nowadays, I think it was camo. But when you're in certain aspects of the military and everybody knows this you will find 98 of the people fall back on faith. Yeah, so this must have been a really a catalyst, really, of really understanding your faith. Because, hey look, training is training. People do die in training. Training can be life and death, yeah, but when you mentioned bullets are flying and you were not only having asking god and and falling back on god about your faith and and what's going on, but about the people around you praying for them, praying for their safety. So let's talk about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So you know, faith for me has always been a part of my life. I was raised in a very strong Christian home and would have said I was a person of faith. You know, from a young age made a decision to follow Christ, to live for God. As a young person, grew up in the church, grew up in youth group and all of the things that a lot of Christian young people do. So that was a part of who I was. I went into the military and again, was not shy about my faith, shy about my Christianity, went to church, had my family in church, all of those things that you're supposed to do.
Speaker 2:But I remember the exact moment in Iraq, standing on a road after a major engagement. Surprised, I was still alive. I remember the feeling of the awareness I don't know a better way to say it the awareness. It was almost a weight that settled in on me, the awareness that God is and the word I would use now is sovereign. God is bigger than all of this that the enemy doesn't care who I am or where I came from, or who my parents were, my education. The enemy doesn't care. The enemy wants to kill me because I'm to them, the enemy, I'm on the other side of this firing line and that the best I can do is the best I can do. I'm responsible for what I have in my hands, what I can be responsible for, but God is bigger than all of this and I've thought back on that moment, probably thousands of times since then, as really being the moment that my faith became real, that it wasn't something that was handed to me by my family, and again, I believed it when I was a teenager and believed it into my early adult years. It wasn't like I just kind of went along because my parents did, I believed it kind of in my head, but it became real to me in my heart, and real to me as an expression of who I am at that moment, because life became very real.
Speaker 2:And so this faith thing, this faith question, this where do you put your confidence? Who are you trusting in why? Why are you trusting in God? What does that mean to you? Who is God? All of those questions became very, very important when the stakes became life or death and, as you mentioned, it then became about more than just me. It's now these Marines that I'm leading and serving and taking care of these real questions of even the enemy that we're dealing with and the lives that they've been living and their deaths and our all of it. It kind of came crashing down at that moment.
Speaker 2:And really an understanding of God, my confidence in him, is what puts all of that into focus, and since then I've had time to think about it and understand it. It is faith in God, not in yourself, faith in God, god who is outside of space and time, God who is in and overall, that establishes the foundation on which the rest of our lives can be built. And the struggles that I've had since then I've been able to work through because I'm standing on this, this foundation of faith. I don't get it. I don't understand it. I'm struggling here. I can't see the end. From the beginning, there is an enemy uh, real or spiritual. I already want to frame that that is trying to take me out. But my confidence is in God and that has become the driving force of my life.
Speaker 1:You know I typically with this podcast 500 plus episodes I typically see or clear of of religion and politics. But you know, when I talk to you I'm like it brings me back to you. You mentioned the, the time when you're in a youth group and the almost like a followership, like you kind of. You know your, your family was based in religion. I had not really a similar thing cause I did not have a faith-based family. But then I had some issues when I was a kid where I lived outside of my family home. I lived with a Christian family and I really learned about religion. I learned about God and I did the mission trips, I did youth group, I was, you know, every Sunday I was at church and I remember when I became born again, the night I did.
Speaker 1:I had some of the most lucid, surreal dreams and I've never talked about this before the most lucid, surreal dreams about Satan that you would never, ever imagine. They felt so real and from that point in my life I have had issues with my faith over the years. I'm in my 30s, 40 years. Now I'm 51. So that was 16, 17 at the time.
Speaker 1:So I have had issues with my faith and God knows I'm not a great person overall you know none of us are but there has been times when I've fallen back on it and there's been times when I've fallen away from it. But when you hit, the real life catalysts, the real life heartaches, the real life pains, the real life death. The real life just things are not good. There's always a faith behind that brings you out of it, and that's one thing I want to talk about. Next was hope. When you're beat down, when you're absolutely at death's door, you always search for hope, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a religious hope, but a hope inside you that there is something better for you and something that gives you the will to live.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Hope is everything. We talk about hope. We could talk about the suicide epidemic among veterans in the United States, which is outrageous. I talk about this. What is that? It's a loss of hope. It's an individual coming to a point where there is nothing beyond this. There is no hope. We could look at relationships that dissolve. We could look at all of these issues. What do they all have in common? At some point, the people or person involved in them gets to that place where hope is gone. What is hope?
Speaker 2:Hope is the belief that there's something outside of my current situation. I like to describe it this way If your world is a circle drawn around you, so you're standing in the middle of that circle and everything inside of that circle is your world around you, so you're standing in the middle of that circle and everything inside of that circle is your world, and all you do is look into that circle. All you do is see your world. Your world is your relationships and your work and your memories and who you are. If all you can see is what's in that circle, that's your world, that's a very hopeless place to be, because the very best that you can ever be inside of that circle is the best that you can be and, if we're honest, we all struggle with the reality that that's not great. Hope comes into our lives when we look outside of that circle and we realize there is someone or something that is bigger than my world. There is something the word is transcendent, something that transcends this world that I am in, that encompasses who I am, and when God is the one in whom we place our faith, we can have confidence that, whether we can see the end from here or not, whether we understand how it's all unfolding or not, that there is a plan and that there is a sovereign, a transcendent God, god, someone who is outside of space and time that is responsible for how this thing unfolds.
Speaker 2:I just had this conversation yesterday with a friend of mine. We were talking about a book called the Ethics of Beauty. It's an interesting book, really thick book, very deep book. The premise is this, or the thesis is this that even in trauma and trial and difficulty he talks a lot about post-traumatic stress in this book there is beauty to be found if we see ourselves as part of a larger story. When we think that the only thing happening in the world is what's happening to us. That's hopeless. When we understand that we are one part of a much larger story, there's always hope because there's always more. We fit in and that can become very beautiful. It becomes the motivation to continue moving forward. When there are questions unanswered, when there are difficulties encountered, when there are trials and traumas in our past, we move forward with this understanding of beauty, the fact that we're part of a much larger picture and, coming at it from a faith perspective, god is the one who writes that story and we're a part of the story that he's unfolding for us.
Speaker 2:When I talk to men and women who are struggling, I try to help them understand that if God created you, then there's always hope because there is purpose and design. He didn't create you to fall on your face. He didn't create you to struggle through life. He has a plan for you and therein is the hope. If I align my life to the life God created me to live, there's always hope. Now, that can seem, you know, esoteric to some. It can seem, you know, mysterious. It's not mysterious. It's understanding that the best we can be is us, but there's a God who's bigger than us and we can trust him.
Speaker 1:Well, you know you're going to find people that don't believe in God, which is, you know that's a negative. When you talk about the circle, when you talk about the circle and your life circle, it's so micro, it's so micro. When you consider the universe, you consider everything. A lot of times when you fall into despair and you fall into, like you know, the suicidal ideations or suicide itself, you can't get out of that circle. And you know, one thing about the military is you always try to establish a foothold and sometimes if you could just get a foot outside of that circle, into your faith, into your belief, into light, into some sort of positivity, just one foothold, then you can get pulled out. And if that means that someone on the outside of your circle could pull you out of it, whether that be your religion, whether that be something that you believe in or whether it's someone that believes in you. But you've got to get out of that circle.
Speaker 1:I remember times in my life where I've been on that point, the edge, inside that circle. I couldn't get out. And I had I didn't, and I had kids at the time. I mean, I saw kids, but at the time my kids were really young and I remember it didn't matter if I had kids, it didn't matter if I had a job that paid the bills. I could not get out of that circle. And my circle kept closing in and in, and in, and in and in and there was nothing that could get me out of it until one day I've I've had to flip the switch myself, because one thing you learn as you get older and I'm learning this now in my 50s is that your circle of friends and circle of people you could rely on is very, very limited.
Speaker 1:Yep, so as you get older it may be and this is all going to come back but as get older it's going to be tougher to get out of that circle of despair, that circle of suicide, because your network becomes smaller. Your true, true network circle and that's where you know a lot of the work that you do is that and I can tell, I can, I can see in your the way you talk about leadership and the way you talk about God. You do have a shift in your voice. You can see your passion and you can see your job. Your job before was to be a leader, to be a decision maker, and now your passion is God, your passion is faith. Your passion is to be that person outside of the circle who's lending a hand, and I think that's where we want to talk about. Next is Mighty Oaks Foundation and how they lend a hand and how you could pull people out of these circles based on what your program is doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, I appreciate that, mighty Oaks. We work with veterans, active duty service members, first responders and spouses, so we include our spouses in all of our programs and we do a number of things, but primarily we have a program called the legacy program and we bring men or women we have separate men's and women's programs men or women to one of five locations across the country. We have ranches that we use across the country California, ohio, texas and Virginia and we bring them to us and they spend a week with us and over the course of that week we talk about trauma, we talk about post-traumatic stress and a lot of these issues that veterans and service members and first responders deal with, of course, but more than anything, we do our best to communicate what we just talked about, that there is hope. We do our best to communicate what we just talked about, that there is hope.
Speaker 2:Many on the other side of transition lose identity and understanding of purpose, and that leads then to frustration, which leads to often anger, but definitely hopelessness. It's this idea that what I had was important, what I did was important, where I was was important, and I just don't have any of those things anymore. So there's nowhere for me to go now. What we do during the course of that five days is we point people to an understanding of God and who he is, what that means to you practically the fact that God the Creator has a plan for your life, and what we need to do is work the fact that God the creator has a plan for your life and what we need to do is work on understanding how we can live according to that plan, how we can engage with that plan and that purpose and that direction. Because outside of the military, you still have a created purpose. Outside of the military, there is an identity that is valuable and meaningful, not just to other people but to you and to your future, that there is something. Even if you can't see it, there is something in front of you.
Speaker 2:Every one of the folks who's involved in leadership in our program the team leaders, instructors they've all come through as students and that's helpful because it's not a clinical program. It's not me telling you what you need to do. It's very much someone standing in front of a class of other veterans, first responders and active duty military folks saying I know where you are because I've been there. I've struggled the same way that you've struggled. Here's my story and we'll tell the story, or they'll tell their story, and here are the steps that I began to take to move forward and I want to help you do the same. So it's very much a peer-to-peer to move forward and I want to help you do the same. So it's very much a peer-to-peer. It's similar to what we experienced in the military, where we're working together toward a common end, but the common end is getting back on our feet and engaging with that hope, that purpose, that meaning and that identity that's in front of us and man, we've seen thousands of folks come through our programs.
Speaker 2:There are other great programs or good clinical programs. I'm not down on any of those, but if you don't have the right foundation, it's really hard to build a life that matters, because the building is only as good as the foundation it's built upon. And if your understanding of faith, understanding of the place where your confidence is found, isn't clear, then the rest of it is always going to struggle. It's a five-day program. Clear, then the rest of it is always going to struggle. It's a five-day program.
Speaker 2:On the other side of that, five days, we work to resource our graduates for as long as they want us involved in their lives. We'll help them get to counseling. We'll help them find the other resources they need to deal with the other issues that they're dealing with and struggling with. But it begins with a decision to move forward. Then the question of how and we talk about that. It's understanding that God has a plan for you and moving toward that. We try to lay that out. Then we bring as much community and assistance as we can around those folks. They have, as you say, the people outside of the circle, to help pull them forward and continue to infuse them with hope.
Speaker 1:One thing you and I both learned is cynics cynical, yeah, yeah, you may have had listen. You know you could grow up with faith. You could be faithful, you could be faithless. The word faith is in your life. You may believe in God, you may have believed in God, but you may have lost faith in God and you become a cynic and you become so closed off. These are the real people that need to be pulled out of that cynicism. But how do you get them from being so cynical and so like I don't believe in anything anymore, I just hate the world and not let them go? How do you get them to see the light, to make that decision, to step forward and get help?
Speaker 2:A lot of the folks who attend our programs. I don't know what the percentage would be, but it'd be very high. They come to our program not because they are people of faith or Christians or whatever. They come to one of our programs A, because there's no cost. We cover the cost of no cost. We cover the cost of the program, we cover the cost of travel. We make that available to them. So it's available, right. But also B, because they've tried everything else. They've tried medications, they've tried clinical programs, they've tried all the other things and it still hasn't given them the foothold that you were talking about or the ability to move forward. So they come to us because they've tried everything else and have nowhere else to go. In fact, many times on a Monday when the program starts, we'll have everyone stand up and they take 30 seconds tell us your name, what branch of the service you were in and why you're here Often I mean probably every. We have 40 programs this year, so 40 weeks of programs, probably 35 of those weeks. Someone stood up and said I've tried everything else and if this doesn't work, then when I go home on Saturday, I'm done.
Speaker 2:Some will say I'll end my life, some will say something else, but it's that sentiment. I'm done. I have nowhere else to go from here. They may also communicate. I don't believe in God. I don't like the faith thing. I'm not here because this is a Christian program. In fact, I was raised a Christian but I now hate God because of what he's let happen in my life, or I've lost my faith or I don't have a faith whatever. So the cynics that you're talking about are our primary audience. Right, they're there because of that often. But because everyone who instructs and everyone who leads teams and everyone who's a part of the leadership also came as a student, which means many of them came also as cynics. Many of them come from a combat background or in the first responder community with long history of service. In their communities there is a commonality, a common bond right away. So that's part of it, right, this is important. There's common ground, and so when an instructor, a team leader, is talking to a student, it's not again from a doctor to a patient, or from a preacher to a parishioner or a teacher to a student. It's very much a peer-to-peer. A teacher to a student, it's very much a peer-to-peer. Look, I get it because I've been there. That's very, very powerful.
Speaker 2:And then, throughout the week, every time a class is taught, we have about 12 classes over those five days, and then they'll break into small groups and discuss the class. Every class that's taught is taught from a testimonial perspective, meaning the person standing in front of the class. Before they can get into the content that's on the PowerPoint, they have to tell their own story, and so there's a bridge that's built, so there's common ground. Then there's a bridge that's built, this guy, this man, this woman standing in front of this class. They do get it because they've lived this. So, okay, maybe I don't like the faith thing, maybe I have a problem with God or whatever, but it sounds like they did too. And then they struggled through this, and then this is the path forward that they found. Maybe there's something here for me.
Speaker 2:And then we ask a question at the beginning of the week If what you're doing isn't working and that's why most people are with us why not try something different? Maybe it's time to just try something different. We're not asking you to sign up for anything right, or whatever. Just try something different. What you're doing clearly has not had the impact you were hoping. So let's try something different and then we'll say what we want to do. This week is simply present, a contrast to the way you're living. We're going to show you what a life of faith can look like and we want to contrast that to the life that you've been living and then make a decision.
Speaker 2:The best way that I've seen and we've seen this happen again thousands of times to address a cynical attitude toward God or an outright rejection of God is to present a picture of what it looks like To have struggled, to have had a lot of questions. In spite of those questions, to have put our faith—well, that's faith right. It's saying I don't understand all of this, but I'm putting my confidence in someone who's outside of my situation, that is God. What does that life look like? And after a week of hearing stories of people say I was where you are, but now I'm here and the difference is I put my faith in God. I began to walk that out and things started to change in my life.
Speaker 2:Often the most cynical people or those who outright reject God by the end of that week will say something like I get it. Now I understand and I'm going to choose a different path. Some will say I get it, I understand, I'm not convinced, but I'm going to choose a different path. Some will say I get it, I understand, I'm not convinced, but I'm open, and they fall anywhere on that spectrum. But, man, there is something so powerful to saying look, I know where you are because I've been exactly there. I've struggled the same way that you've struggled, and here's what God did in my life and the decisions I made to begin moving forward. And here's what happened. And now you get to make a decision for yourself.
Speaker 1:You know the one common catalyst I've seen I just have to use this word catalyst my word of the day. The one common thread I've seen. I love it, it's like my favorite thing. The one thread I've seen, with so many people who are struggling and struggling and stuck and they can't move forward, is anger, and you do everything you could possibly do to get rid of anger.
Speaker 1:Some people use drugs, some people use alcohol. For me, I was angry for the longest time I mean for the longest time and I started taking the Lexapro Generic and I took that for 12, 13 years. I'm finally off it. I finally have a clear head. But there is something about having clarity and being able to see things outside of that bubble of the lexapros, of the drugs, the alcohol. Anything you're doing to curb that anger Because that's really what you're trying to do is you're trying to quell that anger. You're trying to quell that pain. You're trying to push it back to somewhere where it can't affect you anymore. Yeah, but you bring, you bring people together and you, you start just planting the seeds of faith and hope or or anything that's going to shine them a positive light. And listen, jeremy, I, you and I both know that it's not. Life isn't always about a lot of people won't really believe in a God or a God, but they do believe in something. Yes.
Speaker 1:So getting to that point where they believe in something outside of this so they could push them forward and get rid of that anger, hold on a second and go like releasing, letting go hey, we have a little tech issue there, but we were just talking about like pushing back the anger, yeah, and getting through it and finding someone to help you out. How did you know? Jeremy, I did a little research on you before and you talk a lot about your anger, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So one of the very common things that we have as veterans. A lot of things in common, but one is anger. And it's funny. I'll hear someone say, man, I'm just so angry, I've got an anger problem. Or a spouse say my husband has an anger problem. It is so common. And for me that was man. Well, I mean, I almost destroyed my marriage over that, lost my first job in ministry of all things because of my anger, made it so that my young kids didn't want to spend time with me. I was just so angry all of the time. I'm not going to say I'm completely over that, but I have control now and I'm not out of control like I once was.
Speaker 2:Anger really comes on the heels of a loss of control. We become angry because we don't have control. Then we become frustrated because I don't have control anymore. I can't make these people do what I want them to do or the situation be what I want it to be. That frustration, if it lasts long enough, will become anger. Then we start to lose control, lash out post-traumatic stress or any combat trauma issues or issues of trauma related to service as a first responder. You throw that on top of it and it's like putting gas on a fire. You're already angry, you're already starting to lose control, and then you dump that gas on that fire and it's over For me.
Speaker 2:I was so frustrated with my lack of clarity around who I was after leaving the Marine Corps. I was leading Marines in combat and then 30 days later I was completely out of the Marine Corps and working at a church and man, you talk about feeling lost and out of control. And that became me taking my frustration out on my wife, throwing things, hitting things, screaming all the time the same at my kids. My kids would do something, just the kids do. I had a three and a four-year-old at the time and I would just blow up on them and destroy them with my words and screaming at them and my coworkers at the church. Of all places, it was the same thing.
Speaker 2:So anger is is very much a normal thing for those who served in the military and in the first responder community, for sure, understanding that it's a lack of control. I don't have control and so I am acting out. It's not different than a child who throws a temper tantrum because they don't get what they want. We don't see it that way, or say it that way, when we see an adult get upset. But that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 2:When we understand that there are things we're not in control of, that we're responsible for those things that are placed in our hands to steward over, to take care of, to be responsible for, and we need to do a good job with that. The steward over to take care of, to be responsible for, and we need to do a good job with that. But realizing that I am not supposed to be, nor can I be, in control of every person in my life or every situation in my life or every circumstance in my life. That's not my job. This is why it's so important to understand my faith, my confidence, my hope is in God, who's outside of this situation. That's not my responsibility.
Speaker 2:Standing on the road that day when I talked about that after that firefight, that was a big part of it for me, I'm responsible for what I can actually control and God is responsible for everything else. This is a principle that follows in marriage. I'm responsible for me, jeremy. As a husband, I'm not responsible for the decisions that my wife makes. Now I'm responsible to lead well and to do a good job. As a husband, I'm not responsible for the decisions that my wife makes. Now I'm responsible to lead well and to do a good job as her husband, but at the end of the day, she's going to do what she does and that's her responsibility before God.
Speaker 2:My kids I'm responsible to take care of them, to train them, to bring them up, to discipline them when discipline is needed, but at the end of the day they're going to make their own decisions. I can only do what I can do. Day they're going to make their own decisions, I can only do what I can do. It's not a cop out, it's not a way of stepping away, but it's an actual understanding of my place in this world. And my place in this world is not God. And when I realized that I'm not God, but that God is God man, I can actually find peace because I'm not responsible for everything that happens around me. That has been a very long process for me to come to. And, um, I get it wrong sometimes, still, no doubt. But when you realize I can't control everything, nor should I try, that changes a lot.
Speaker 1:You had your identity there. You were, were a combat leader, you were combat effective and, like you said, you go off and you're a civilian like weeks later and you don't have that mission. Yeah, you can, you're gonna, you could be a ministry, yes, but maybe that's not your higher calling. Maybe your other higher calling is working for, like the mighty oaks foundation, maybe it's working for other things, maybe it's working to help other people.
Speaker 1:One thing I've learned is that when I retired from being a fed and when I geez, I can go all the way back, you know to, when I took the uniform off for the last time to fast forward, you know, until I'm done with service 30 years of my life, in one way or the other, was giving back or trying to help. I had a mission and then, when I didn't, I had to find another mission. I think the biggest thing is to find another mission, find something that's going to change your. I'm not going to say change your identity, I'm going to say enhance your identity. Your identity could still be serving, still giving back, still doing something outside of the common norm. You have to have a mission, something next. I think that's. It's so key to first responders and and military and and everybody's to have that next mission.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you had talked about having the right people around you, and if a person who's struggling is going to move forward, they need to have the right people around them, have the right community. 100%. That is the starting point. Isolation destroys. You have to get around other good people moving the right direction, the right people, and have that community around you. But I think that the next important thing is to what you just said find a mission, find a place to serve. That's the way that I would probably frame it, Because when you're in the middle of these moments in your life where you're frustrated and angry, you've lost your identity. All of those issues that we talk about, your view becomes very myopic. It becomes about me what.
Speaker 2:I'm dealing with right now, what I'm going through. Right now, I feel my feelings in a bigger way. I think these thoughts that are in my head are true, even if they don't make sense because they're running through my head. When you find a mission and you find a place to serve and you find people to serve, that gives you the opportunity to get the right perspective, to realize life is not all about me. There are other places that I can serve and other people that need to be served. The world is bigger than this thing that I'm feeling or this thing that I've experienced.
Speaker 2:If done right over time, it also gives you the perspective to be able to look back to your time in uniform and really understand that was a wonderful time. I'm proud of that. I invested a lot of my life there, but that was a job, an important job, but it was a job. It was a way for me to use what God has given me to serve other people. And now I'm doing that in another place and I have another opportunity to continue doing what I've always done. It took me about 10 years to really get a hold of that, even though I was in ministry. But, man, when you realize my service doesn't end when I put the uniform in the closet. It's just a transition to a different place of service. Find that different place of service and, man, your identity becomes clearer, your mission becomes focused and you're able to move forward. So, so critical. Those would be the two things I would say. Right Is get get yourself in the right community, the right people, and then, as you mentioned, find the next mission, the next place to serve.
Speaker 1:You know I talked about that circle a lot and you know this brings a lot of clarity. The whole, the whole purpose of building a team is sometimes you need to build a team that's just going to be there for you when you need it. And you know, and, granted, it's self-serving, but sometimes but it's not self-serving because you're going to be there for them Build a team that you could be there for each other because you need support. You can't do this alone. As someone who is themselves in their mind for a long time and only have a very small network, it's tough to trust Because a lot of times we use social media.
Speaker 1:A lot of times we see a lot of things. Other people are trying to build their own ego. But when you find an internal network or people around you who are just really authentic and will check on you, if they don't hear from you, they will text you, they will call you. I haven't heard, I haven't seen you doing this for two or three days. You're okay. You're okay. Build that network because at the end of the day, you know there are the ones that are going to be there for you when you do fall and everybody does at one point or the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right, and the way that you build that network in part is by being that person for other people. We see this I need the right people in my life. As being, I need those people to speak into my life, and then we wonder why they don't or why they fall off. When you become that person for others, it not only gives you a mission and others to serve, but it helps to build that community or that circle of people who speak back into your life. Finding the right people and the right community, the right circle, is absolutely critical. You have to have people in your life who hold you accountable. I could go on and on about this, but isolation is something that absolutely destroys all of us. I think those of us who have served in uniform are more prone to this, for whatever reason. But isolating and the thoughts in your head that aren't rational thoughts become rational to you because you don't have anyone calling you out on it, and then eventually you act on those irrational thoughts.
Speaker 1:You know, the last thing I want to talk about today is March or Die, because I've been looking for a new podcast. Listen.
Speaker 2:I don't.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to listen to myself all day long. That's kind of like weird. But I'm really interested in checking out March or Die because I've been looking at it and there's a lot of life lessons on here. And, yes, it is faith-based unless there's a lot of that. But I believe that even if you don't have a solid foundation in faith, that you could learn something. We could always learn something from others. So March or Die is one of those things we were talking about. Before we hit record was like hey look, decision making, you got to make a decision and you march or die.
Speaker 1:So let's just do an overview of the podcast man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the name of the podcast. It came from a book that I wrote called March or Die, and that came from a unit motto, the first platoon that I was a part of when I was a rifle platoon commander. The motto was march or die, and simple, right, it's Marine proof. And so you have two choices you can stay where you are and die. You can do that. That's a choice that you make, it's not something that happens to you. You make a decision. Or you can march.
Speaker 2:Um, I tell the story of us being at that bridge and being on top of that bridge. Uh, there's a lot to that story. One part is I made the decision to move from the near side to the top of the bridge. That was a, you know, in military terms, that was the X. We were on an ambush site, the mortar rounds kept falling around us and in that moment you know that was physical, that was real, but this can become. You know, all of us in our lives. We have those moments where we're on the X, the enemy's bullets are coming our direction, the mortar rounds are falling, things are exploding. What do you do in those moments? What do you do?
Speaker 2:Well, some people decide to stay where they are and die. And again, that's a decision. Now I'm not talking about the physical kind, but emotionally, spiritually, relationally. There's a decision to stay where we are and die. You can make that decision or you can march, put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward, get to a place where you can better impact the enemy, and that's the better decision. We get so bogged down with uh, there are a thousand different things I could do here. There's really not. There may be a lot of nuance to the decisions, but you have to make one or the other stay where you are or move forward. So the podcast and the book and all the things that I have connected to that phrase march or die are just that principles for moving forward when it feels like your world is falling apart. And I think back to that day every day and many, many lessons that have come to my life as a result of that. But march or die, just keep moving forward.
Speaker 1:Excellent, excellent, excellent point, though we're going to leave on that one. You know something, a positive high note that you know what you do need to move forward. Yeah, always move forward, brother and Jeremy. I appreciate you coming on the show man.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, I really appreciate the time and man, it's awesome. Just to.
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